


The Secrets We Keep

by upsetrise



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gen, OC/OC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 00:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upsetrise/pseuds/upsetrise
Summary: Emma Dupain-Cheng has always wondered what secrets her mother has been keeping. In fact there is hardly anything she knows about her at all, so when on her fourteenth birthday a cat breaks into their house and goes into the forbidden attic, she has to go up there and get it out. Little does know in that attic she finds a mysterious box that will change her whole world.





	The Secrets We Keep

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm starting another story but this has been plaguing me for months. I've got so many ideas for it but I just wanted to put it out there first. This of course is set in the future and is an AU, but that's all you're getting from me so far!

1

The Forbidden Attic

Emma Dupain- Cheng sighed as she saw her mother come downstairs. The woman looked tired, well she looked tired most days. This was a tired that Emma had seen before. It meant her mother had been up all night working on a new piece in her fashion line.

“Maman,” She said as a greeting and sat back down on her chair.

“Happy Birthday.” Her mother whispered stifling a yawn. She finished walking down the stairs and went over to the kitchen counter.

  
On the counter, there was bread and butter that had just been taken out of the fridge. Her mother started to make some toast before joining her daughter at the table.

  
“Your birthday present is upstairs. You can have it when you get back from school.” Her mother said with a small smile.

Emma just stared at her mother. The usual bags underneath her eyes were so dark that they looked like bruises.

“Thank you Maman. Can’t I open it now though?” Emma said batting her long eyelashes.

"No. You have to wait. It’s not everyday that you turn fourteen.” Her mother said with a yawn. She wiped the water that had formed away quickly before looking at her daughter.

  
“I guess.” Emma said leaning against the back of her chair with her arms crossed.

  
"Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?” Her mother said as she rose from the table.

  
“Yes.” Emma replied getting up a little later after her. Her mother watched her walk up the stairs as she headed up to the room.

  
The two of them lived in a pretty large house. Well large by some of Emma’s friends standards. They had only ever seen glimpses of it. Her mother wasn’t exactly a famous fashion designer but she had started to make her own name around Paris. So they could easily afford the house that they lived in.

  
It was located on the edge of Paris, just far enough away so that Emma could get the metro or bus to school. There were several levels to the building. On the first floor was the kitchen, lounge area and her mother’s study/ workshop which had fabric laid everywhere.

  
Emma had spent hours in the workshop, watching her mother work with her steady hands. She had always been so focused with all her tools laid out at her. Sometimes she had explained the way she cut the fabrics but had learned quickly on that her daughter didn’t care for the creation of fashion. She only liked to watch.

  
On the second floor was the bathroom they shared between them. It was often littered with shampoo bottles. Emma had inherited her mother’s raven hair had it was quite often a pain to deal with. Then there were the bedrooms. Her mother’s bedroom was also filled with designs and fabric everywhere. In fact, it was only her mother’s double bed that remained neatly made. The last bedroom was Emma’s. She had all the essentials that a fourteen year old girl could ask for, makeup and fashion magazines piled all over her desk. Her mother had brought a large double bed the moment she had started Lycee. Her room had been painted her favourite colour green and of course her furniture complimented that colour.

The best thing in her room however had to be her camera. Last year, her mother had given her a DSLR camera and Emma had never let it go out of her sight.

  
As she approached her bedroom, she looked up at the ladders and to the attic’s hatch. The paint around had started to wear away and flakes were appearing. Emma had never been up to the attic. It was forbidden and her mother had never explained why. Of course there had been countless times where she had wanted to go up. She had tried to once when she was ten. Her mother had caught her halfway up the stairs. It hadn’t been fun that night, she gotten a lecture for about an hour and was grounded for the rest of the month. With that Emma had learnt never to go up to the attic again.

  
She walked past it and went into her bedroom. She threw on a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt and got her school bag before descending down the stairs. She could already hear her mother at work by the various noises coming from the workshop. She walked out and headed to school.

  
At the metro station, she plugged her headphones on and played Jagged Stone’s new song on her phone. The singer was getting old now but his music remained as catchy as ever that it had bridged the generational gap. The train ride to school took about twenty minutes and the early morning workers were also making their daily commute.

  
Emma exited the station, scanning her ticket and walked onto the street. It was a clear day, the sun was shining down onto the sidewalk and the air was warm. She started to walk towards school when she felt a tap on her shoulder.  
“Emma,” A voice called. She turned to see her best friend right behind her.

  
She took out her headphones and smirked. “Hello Theodore, trying to sneak up on me?”

  
“Trying is a strong word, perhaps getting your attention is better?” He replied with a smile back.

  
Emma reached up and ruffled his brown hair.

  
“Yes. Well consider my attention caught? Come on, we need to get to school!” She called and started to run.

  
“Hey that was unfair!” Theodore called after her.

  
Emma only laughed as she raced towards the school steps. Theodore was right behind her. As she reached the school steps, she turned around to see her him panting as he tried to regain his breath.

  
“It’s unfair.” He muttered as he took a deep breath and finally looked at her.

  
“What is?” She said innocently and blinked twice for effect.

  
Theodore rolled his eyes. “That you’re doing cross country and you challenged me to a race.”

  
“Consider it payback.”

  
Theodore laughed and Emma was about to head into the school when she heard a faint ‘meow’ come from one of the alleyways. She came off the steps and started to make her way towards the noise.  
In the alleyway next to the school, there were a couple of garbage cans that had been pushed over. The trash on the ground stunk but Emma got onto her knees and starting to move the cardboard boxes away and she found a thin black cat staring up at her. It's paw was trapped underneath some heavy trash. It meowed and Emma didn’t even spare a second thought before moving it off the cat’s paw. Once it was over, she sat back on the knees and watched as the cat padded over to her.

  
It's head bumped her arm and she reached out and gave it a head stroke. There was a distinct rumbling from him. The cat had started purring.

  
He looked up at her with familiar green eyes. That sent a jolt through her. Familiar green eyes? She had never met the cat before today, so why did they look so familiar?

  
She gave the cat a head scratch once more and then stood up.

  
“Sorry chaton as much as I would love to take you home, I’m not sure Maman would approve.”

  
She walked away and saw that Theodore had already gone inside the school. She heard the bell go and knew that she was going to be late so quickly ran inside as fast as she could. The other students had already made it inside their respective classrooms and as soon as she approached her's her teacher was just coming around the corner.

  
Emma bolted into the classroom and took her seat right at the front next to her friend Bayleigh.

  
“Emma, that was cutting it late.” The girl whispered in her ear as Emma picked up her tablet from her bag.

  
“I know, but I made it didn’t I.” She said with a wink.

  
“Yes just barely.” Bayleigh replied and then leaned forward to see their teacher Ms Fabron writing some of the stuff that they were going to learn for the following semester.

  
As roll-call started happening, Emma turned her eyes to look at the back where Theodore was sitting. He had his legs perched on the desk and he was leaning back as if he was at home. His head was titled back and he looked like he was about to fall asleep. Emma starting counting down until his name was called. Five, four, three, two, one.

  
“Monsieur Beaumont.” She heard her teacher call. There were no response from Theodore.

  
“Monsieur Beaumont!” Ms Fabron shouted. It caused Theodore to startle and to put his hand up.

  
“Here Ms!” He called.

  
Ms Fabron shook her head and sighed. “Next time, can you take a nap at home and not in my class?”

  
“Yes Ms, sorry.” Theodore apologised.

  
Emma was silent laughing and gave Theodore a wink. He gave her a thumbs up before the two of them returned their attention to the lesson that was at hand.  
The morning went quickly and soon it was time for lunch. Emma headed over to the cafeteria with her friends where she grabbed a burger and fries before heading back to a table in the corner. Theodore and Bayleigh joined her five minutes later with their lunches.

  
“Happy birthday Emma!” Bayleigh sung as she sat down next to her friend. She flicked her long blonde hair behind her shoulder so that it wouldn’t get caught in her food. She had gone for a curry for lunch and had just started prodding at it.  
“Thanks,” Emma said as she picked her burger and took a bite out of it. The flavour was juicy and just right.

  
“I’ve got your present in my bag, hang on a second,” Theodore said reaching down with one hand as he rummaged for it. “Got it!” He said with a cheer and then passed a sloppily wrapped present to Emma. The green paper was all wrinkled and the bow was about to come off.

  
She picked it up and raised one of her eyebrows. “Great wrapping job. Who taught you?”

  
Theodore shrugged off her insult. “I did it this morning because it only came last night.”

  
“Well I’ll forgive you then,” Emma replied as she started to unwrap the present. As all the layers came away, she looked at it. It was a small polaroid that had been popular before she was born. There was even a roll of film next to it.

  
“Thank you Theo! This is great!” She said getting up out of his seat and pecking him quickly on the cheek.

  
“Well now you can take photos instantly!”

  
“Speaking of presents, I got you a tripod for your other camera but I’ll have to bring it tomorrow. It was too heavy,” Bayleigh said waving her hand around as if she was trying to swat a fly. She was still picking at her food and just staring down at it as if it might eat her.

  
"Other camera? It's a DSLR one of the best cameras in the industry." Emma said pretending to be offended.

  
"Oh what a disaster, it's a camera. It does the same thing all cameras do; take photos. Leave your camera geeking to yourself."

  
Emma sat back down in her seat, Bayleigh slid her plate over to Theodore who was just finishing off his.

  
“Do you want to finish it?” She asked.

  
“Fine.” Theodore sighed.

  
“And once again the human vacuum cleaner is present.” Emma smirked.

  
“I’ll have you know-,” Theodore said through a mouthful of food. Emma reached across and closed his mouth.

  
“Don’t you know it’s bad manners to talk with your mouth full?”

  
There was a grumble and Theodore finished eating the mouthful of curry.

  
“Mean.” He huffed underneath his breath.

  
As Emma finished her lunch, Bayleigh was messaging someone on her phone. She typed quickly and the only sound between the three of them was the constant typing.  
Once Emma was done, she turned to Bayleigh.

  
“I forgot to say about that party you wanted at my house, well Maman said no.” Emma said not meeting her friend’s eyes.

  
Bayleigh groaned beside her. “Seriously your mother is so werid. Fine, we will think of some other way for a party.”

  
Emma didn’t get any time to reply as Bayleigh was back typing on her phone again.

* * *

  
It had been a long day from school so as Emma approached her empty house. She sighed. All the lights were off and the house felt cold as she unlocked it. Turning the kitchen light on she saw that there was a note left from her mother. She didn’t bother reading but instead threw her school bag onto the ground.

  
"Happy birthday to me." She said bitterly.

  
“Meow.”

  
Emma turned around and saw the same black cat from the morning sitting in her kitchen. She blinked. Had the cat followed home?

  
“How on earth did you get in here?” She said and started to tip-toe towards it. It made no difference as the cat bolted out of the kitchen.

  
Emma quickly followed and saw that it was going upstairs. She went up. The cat was waiting for her, it’s tail twitching a little bit. It gave another meow before running off again.

  
“Hey wait!” Emma called. Her mother was going to kill her if she didn’t get the cat out of the house as soon as possible, she was sure of it.

  
Once she caught the cat up again, she watched as it ran up the ladder to the attic and pushed the hatch open with it’s head and disappeared inside. Emma just froze.  
The attic. The cat had gone into the attic. The very place that she wasn’t allowed to go, but to get the cat out she needed to go in there. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself down despite everything in her body screaming for her not to to go into the attic because she was forbidden.

  
She took a few shaky steps forward up the ladder and hesitated before the door. This was it. She was breaking her mother’s number one rule, but it would be okay if her mother never knew.

  
With a final nod to herself, Emma pushed onto the door and it lifted with ease and into the attic she went. As she stood up, she coughed as there was a thick layer of dust rose into the air. Clearly it hadn't been disturbed for a very long time. She quickly scanned her surroundings to see if she could spot the cat anywhere.

  
She did see everything covered in by a white tarp and patches of sunlight streaming in from various windows that were located quite high. It looked like a normal attic. Was her mother hiding something up here? As she started to walk forward, looking out of the corner of her eye for any sign of movement, she saw a beam of sunlight shining on an old wooden box on the floor.

  
Emma crouched down and it picked it up. The wood was covered with some red detailing and writing that she couldn’t read. Someone had placed it there but when she didn’t know. She quickly wiped the little dust that was on the top and took another look at it.

  
As she was kneeling, she didn’t notice the cat coming to sit right beside her. She was too invested in the box as she reached out with a shaking hand and opened it. All of a sudden there was a bright light and she dropped the box to the ground.


End file.
